


Here Be Dragons

by mango22, Rumaan



Series: Magical Creature Yousana [2]
Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Dragon!Yousef, F/M, Medical Student!Sana, Mythological Creature AU, Romance, Soulmates, Yes I know this is weird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-11 02:00:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11704464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mango22/pseuds/mango22, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rumaan/pseuds/Rumaan
Summary: The hot barista has everything going for him except a smoking problem.





	1. Rumaan

**Author's Note:**

> So I've always wanted to write this prompt: i’m a med student who has a huge crush on the hot guy who works at the coffee shop who always gives me free drinks when i’m stressed and calls me princess even though i pretend i think it’s annoying but i’m extremely concerned about him because he always smells like smoke so i always give him lectures about how terrible cigarettes are for you and i may have made a powerpoint which is probably excessive but lung health is extremely important and oops it turns out he’s part-dragon or something hahahaha oops” AU - and I finally have an OTP where I could do it!
> 
> But yeah, this is a mythological creature AU and so therefore weird! Blame @thickskinandelasticheart for encouraging me in this insanity! I have attempted some world building on this based on the meagre research I could find on google about Turkish culture and dragons - don't look too closely at it or you will fall in the holes!
> 
> Written for @skam-month's free choice day
> 
> FYI: makrooh means inadvisable and haram means forbidden. There is a debate in Islam about which one smoking is. However it is definitely not halal

The café was small and tucked away and that was how Sana first found it. She wasn’t a big fan of the medical library in the University of Oslo – finding it too large and anonymous to fully settle in. She hadn’t been able to find a little nook that she could spread out in and work hard. So she started scouring the surrounding area for somewhere she could study close by and ran across the café on her third day of hunting.

It was never very busy – people seemed to go there for take-away cups of coffee and food and that was how she liked it. She could always get the table in the corner and tuck herself away for hours to study. Her decision to adopt this place as her second home of study had absolutely nothing to do with the tall, dark and handsome barista who worked there.

Or so she told herself.

It didn’t help that always seemed to know when she was extra stressed. He would call her princess then to make her roll her eyes and huff, but would make up with by refusing to let her pay for her coffee and would often sneak a cookie onto her table at some point that she would notice when she was getting hungry and cranky and needed a sugar break. She would always look at him then with narrowed eyes, but he would widen his innocently and looked confused about how the cookie got onto her table. His dorky by-play would always bring her dimples out.

The only downside to the hot barista as far as she could tell was that he smoked. Sana hated smoking – she didn’t care how many people claimed it was _makrooh_ , it was bad for your body and bad for anyone else around you so she agreed with the scholars who said it was _haram_. She hadn’t actually ever seen Yousef smoking or even taking a break to smoke, but he always smelt of it. Although not the acrid, tangy smell of cigarette smoke; it was more like he had just been standing next to an open fire. It was woodsy and made her think of trips to cabins she’d taken over the years with either her family or the girls, where she always loved to set up a campfire outside or light the open fire inside and watch as the logs crackled and hissed as they burnt. It always soothed her to stare into the flames and clear her mind. When she was feeling particularly angry, she liked to project her rage into the blaze and pretend it was burning up along with the wood.

Being a medical student, she thought it was her ethical duty to remind him of how terrible smoking was for the body. So she’d started giving him leaflets from the University clinic that outlined why smoking was bad and various ways you could stop. She’d even gone to the trouble of finding programmes that were designed to help you stop smoking to pass onto him. Yousef always laughed when she gave him these and would tease her by asking if she had something to say to him. But the smell of smoke never dissipated, so she presumed he just chucked the information away.

However, none of that explained why she kept this place such a secret though. She refused to dwell on why she had told no one about this coffee shop. Isak was always bugging her about where she went to study. They weren’t on the same course, but he still liked to study together, claiming that Sana helped him concentrate and cracked the whip when necessary. But for some reason, she wouldn’t tell him about this place. It was her secret and she wanted to keep it that way.

“Same as usual, Princess?” Yousef asked when she came in through the door.

“I’m not even stressed today so why am I princess?”

“The real answer to that question is that you’re always Princess Sana. You’re like a real life Disney princess.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Take that back.”

“Nope,” he said with a shit eating grin. “Sorry, but I don’t make the Disney princess rules and you are definitely one.”

She wanted to quip back that he was definitely a Disney prince, but she didn’t dare. She knew they flirted a little, but it was always abstract. At least on her end. He was definitely flirtier and it always sent her heart into overdrive. However, she couldn’t help but encourage his flirting a little.

“So if I’m a Disney princess then which one am I?” she asked, hoping he would dodge the bullet of answering Jasmine cos Jasmine was the Arab princess.

“See, most people would say Jasmine for obvious stupid reasons and don’t get me wrong, you have some Jasmine traits. You’re fearless and speak your mind. But, I’m going to go with Merida.”

“Merida?”

“Yeah because you’re bold and brave and plough your own path regardless of expectations. And also I bet you’re very stubborn.”

Laughing, Sana had to acknowledge the truth of that. “I drive my brothers crazy with just how stubborn. So how do you know so much about princesses then?”

He shrugged and said, “Lots of cousins. They like Disney princesses”

“Okay,” she said grinning finding the whole conversation adorable. “I’m going to sit in my usual place.”

“I’ll bring the coffee over when it’s done.”

“Thanks.”

Pulling her laptop out, she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth for a moment. She had stayed up late last night making a PowerPoint presentation about the dangers of smoking and the effects on your body. She had debated the wisdom of showing him it, but she wanted him to stop smoking for his own sake. It was so bad for you and she hated the thought of him doing something that could kill him when it was preventable.

“Please tell me that’s not for me?” he asked and she jumped a little. She had been so lost about whether or not to show him that she hadn’t even heard him come up to the table.

“Yep. And there are lots of gross pictures of diseased lungs for extra emphasis.”

His shoulders shook then and he said, “But I don’t even smoke!”

Sana gave him an unimpressed look. “Please, you _always_ smell like smoke. How do you explain that away if it’s not because you smoke.”

A conflicted look passed over his face, which grew serious. “You really want to know why?”

“Yes, of course,” she said, wondering just why he was so solemn about this.

“It’s not because I smoke, it’s-” he started to say but from behind him came an all too familiar voice.

“So _this_ is where you disappear off to?” They both turn their heads then towards Isak, who was standing there with a curious expression on his face. “I’ve actually been hoping to bump into you today cause I got a weird result in lab that I wanted to run passed you.”

“Did you _follow_ me?” Sana asked incredulously.

Dropping his bag to the ground, Isak sat in the seat opposite to her and started pulling books out and ignoring her question.

There was a flash of something in Yousef’s eye that she couldn’t quite decipher. It looked like the sparks that were thrown up when a wood split in a fire but it was gone before she could properly see. “Is he bothering you?” Yousef asked, his voice laced with smouldering anger.

Isak looked up with a raised eyebrow and Sana could see him leaping to all kinds of conclusions so she hurriedly said, “No, don’t worry.”

Turning away from where he was observing Isak getting comfortable, Yousef gave her a polite smile and motioned back to the counter. “I better get back to work.”

“Yeah of course,” she said with a thread of disappointment in her voice. She watched him walk back across the small shop.

“A cute barista, huh? He got kind of possessive there for a moment,” Isak remarked with a knowing look.

Pretending that she had no idea what he was talking about, Sana said, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Of course you don’t, but your squirrely behaviour regarding just where you disappear to makes so much more sense now.”

“Are you just going to ignore my question about what you are doing here? Did you follow me?” she asked, arms crossed against her chest.

“Actually, no. I heard someone in my class say that this place has the best coffee and I planned on checking it out.”

“Hmm,” she said, her eyes still narrowed.

Isak looked over his shoulder. “He’s hot. I would want to keep him hidden away, too, if I were you.”

“I’m not hiding him away.”

“Sure, Jan.”

Huffing irritably, she said, “Are you going to tell me what it is you want my help with or just be annoying.”

“As fun as it would be to tease you about this, I do actually need you look at this for me,” Isak said, passing over a sheaf of papers to her.

As she took them, Sana looked up and caught Yousef’s eye. He was standing behind the counter, his arms folded over his chest unhappily and what looked like smoke coming out of his nose. She frowned and squinted a little because it couldn’t possibly be real smoke. He had no cigarette in his hand and you couldn’t smoke inside again. Shaking her head, convinced that she was going crazy, she looked again but saw nothing. She really was losing her mind. Staying up so late to prepare the PowerPoint presentation on smoking was giving her hallucinations!

Putting her head down, she concentrated on Isak’s lab results instead.

\----------

 

Sana went back the coffee shop the next day. Isak interrupting them had left her with plenty of questions. She timed her visit to thirty minutes before the café was about to close. It was always dead at that time and she would get to chat with Yousef more.

He was behind the counter as usual.

“So, you realise I didn’t get to go through my PowerPoint presentation yesterday,” she said lightly. “I worked really hard on that.”

He rolled his eyes. “I promise you I don’t smoke.”

She leaned forward so she was bending over the counter and sniffed his clothes. “Hmm…my nose begs to differ.”

Laughing, Yousef said, “And smelling someone’s clothes is always the test for if they smoke or not.”

“Usually,” she said before frowning a little and tilting her head. “Although you don’t exactly smell of cigarette smoke. It’s more outdoorsy than that. Do you have a wood oven in the back?”

 “I doubt we’d get a permit for that in a coffee shop,” he said.

“So if you don’t smoke how come you always smell like smoke?” she asked.

Yousef looked closely at her then and Sana kept her gaze steady. She did actually want to know and she could tell that he was debating whether he could trust her or not. Did he have a secret wood oven in the back?

Nodding his head a little, he said, “Okay, I’ll tell you. But I need to close up first.”

“Twenty minutes early?” she remarked.

“No one comes in at this time anyway. And I thought you wanted to hear this story.”

“I do! I do!”

Throwing his apron onto the counter, he walked around it and towards the front door, gesturing for her to sit at one of the tables. He flipped the open sign and bolted the door, coming back to sit opposite her.

“So,” Yousef said after a slightly awkward pause. “What do you know about dragons?”

“Dragons?” she asked, looking at him as if he had lost his mind.

“Yeah, dragons.”

“Sorry. I’m trying to work out just where you are going with this.”

“Don’t try and do that because you won’t figure it out.”

Sana tilted her head and looked at him with a slight crease between her eyebrows. “And why’s that?”

“Because the story sounds crazy.”

“So are you going to tell me then?”

Yousef stared at her for a brief moment, his hands twisting nervously on the table before slipping down to grip the edge of it tightly. “I’m sort of a dragon.”

“What?” she said, bursting out into a short peel of laughter. Silence followed her outbreak and he didn’t move his eyes from hers and his face remained deadpan. “Wait, you’re not serious are you?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“What does that even mean? How can you be related to a mythical creature and _how_ does that work?” she asked, fascinated.

“You’re not running out the door screaming.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because I just told you an insane story that’s why.”

Sana rolled her eyes. “Are you going to like breath flames out your mouth, roast me and then eat me?”

“No!” he exclaimed, offended.

“So then why would I run away?” she asked, propping her elbows up on the table between them and resting her chin on her knuckles. “I need an explanation for this, Yousef.”

He let out a huff of amusement then and ran a shaking hand through his hair. “I didn’t believe my mum when she told me it would play out like this.”

“What would play out like this?”

“Just I’m not telling you any of this to make you somehow beholden, okay?” he stated and Sana nodded her understanding. “But my people – or well, people like me, we have soulmates. Someone we know the instant we meet them. We connect to them on a deep level, able to understand their moods and emotions and we are unable to ever fall in love with anyone else. I always thought this was weird when growing up and I asked my mum endless questions about why this would happen and how you could someone was your soulmate and she told me it was so when we confessed the truth to our soulmate, they wouldn’t flee from us but be interested and want to know the truth.”

Moving back into her chair, she stared at him with narrowed eyes. “And you’re trying to say I’m your soulmate?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I knew it the moment you came into the coffee shop. There was this warmth that built up in my stomach, like someone stoking a fire, and I looked into your eyes and it just clicked.”

“Let me get this straight – you’re some kind of dragon person and I’m your soulmate? Yousef, are you sure the carbon monoxide levels in this place meet safety requirements.”

“Perfectly sure.”

“So dragon people? I need to know more.”

“Of course you do,” he said with a fond smile.

“Hey!” Sana protested. “Let’s not make out like I’m the crazy one here. I think that’s a perfectly legitimate request.”

“It is,” Yousef admitted with a smile. “It is. You have to go back a millennia or so to get the answers.”

He stopped then, staring off just over her shoulder. She moved her head so he was looking at her and said, “Is that it?”

“No, there’s a whole myth.”

“Good because I like myths. I was totally the girl who read ancient mythology for fun.”

“I want to hear more about young Sana,” Yousef said but at the impatient waving of her hand, he continued, “But I promised you this story. So here goes.  Basically, Turkic people are originally from Central Asia and back in the old days, people believed dragons lived in the mountains of Tengri Tagh and they were right. It is said that the only daughter of local Khan got lost in the mountains one spring. Search parties were sent out for her, but she remained missing until she turned up the following spring with a small baby in her arms. She said nothing of her experiences or who the babe belonged to but an air of smoke hung around them both and the baby had a giant tooth hanging from a piece of string around his neck. The Khan, so happy to his daughter back and with her a son to groom to become leader of his people, dismissed his worries about where she had been and why the baby always smelt like fire. The baby grew up to be fierce in battle. It was said that steam could be seen billowing from his nose in the midst of battle and he would never get cold, his skin hot to the touch even in the depths of winter.  When his grandfather died, he took over the tribe, becoming a mighty khan who only took one wife, a woman he bonded with on sight and they understood each other so instinctively that it confused their people. Some of their children displayed similar characteristics to their father whilst others didn’t and it was the same in their children and their children’s children.”

“So she had a baby with a dragon?” Sana asked. “The Khan’s daughter.”

Yousef shrugged. “No one knows, but my mother has those traits as do I.”

Thinking back to yesterday, she remembered seeing smoke coming out of his once Isak arrived. “Did you breathe smoke yesterday? When my friend came?”

He looked away from her then and said, “Yeah. It happens when our emotions are high. You were irritated with that guy and I wanted to protect you.”

It shouldn’t have been endearing. It really shouldn’t. Or believable. Yet the self-conscious way Yousef was explaining it all along with the sincerity in her eyes had her believing him.

“Can I touch your skin?” she asked, with her hand out.

“Why are you not freaking out?”

It was her turn to shrug. “I don’t know. I’m just not. I’m not sure I believe in soulmates, but this doesn’t scare me. In fact it explains some things.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You always can pick up on my mood. Maybe you are really good at reading people, but it doesn’t feel like that,” she said. “I can’t explain it but it feels different in my heart and as illogical as all of this is, I believe you.”

“Without touching my skin?” he said, with a smile and putting his arm out for her.

Placing her fingers on his forearm, she could feel how hot he was as if he’d just climbed out of a really hot shower. It was pleasant to the touch and she imagined how it would feel snuggling next to him in the icy cold of the Norwegian winter. Her very own furnace to keep her warm.

“That hasn’t changed my mind,” Sana said. “I still believe you.”

His smiled widened and his eyes caught her gaze. She could feel the connection he talked about in her very bones, could almost taste his exhilaration and relief that she wasn’t high tailing it out the door. She found herself grinning back at him.

“Does this mean I can ask you out on a date?”

“Hmm…I guess,” she said her grin getting even wider. “I’m kind of curious about what kind of date the descendent of a dragon comes up with.”


	2. mango22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yousef takes Sana on a date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zarifa wrote a super cute follow up to this dragon fic, which really needed to be published! So here is their first date!

He picked her up in a motorbike and she said with a dramatic sigh as she got on, “And here I thought you would transform into a dragon and take me on a ride.”

 Yousef chuckled as he revved the engine. “Sadly I can’t fly but I sure can make it feel like flying on this old thing. Hold tight Dr. Bakkoush.”

And with that they zoomed off, Sana squealing at how fast they were going but enjoying it a lot at the same time. They’d decided a picnic in the woods would be ideal so he parked nearby and they walked the rest of the way along the trail until they found a nice cozy spot under an oak tree.

“Didn’t they ever tell you not to walk into a dragon’s lair?” he joked as he set the table.

She grinned and replied, “Aren’t dragons supposed to protect princesses?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, so now you’re okay with being a princess. I seem to recall much annoyance with that nickname when I initially started using it.”

Sana shrugged. “What can I say, over the last few months, it’s grown on me.” _Just like you have._

“I’m glad.” He said as he handed her an apple.

Their fingers brushed as she took it from him and she felt tingles across her skin at the part where they touched. He was so warm, she wondered how it would feel enveloped in an embrace by him. They began eating and for a while talked about school and work and other mundane topics before she jumped back into the topic that interested her the most.

“So, what else can you do? Dragon wise?” She said as she finished her carrot pie.

He leaned against a tree and replied, “Most people would shy away from the topic and yet you can’t get enough.”

_She really is my soulmate after all. She’s embracing this part of me, not running away from it._

“Well, it’s not every day I get asked out by a half dragon.”

“You really aren’t freaked out by this huh? In fact, you almost find it…dare I say it…cool?”

Sana smirked. “Don’t you mean hot?”

He laughed and shook his head, half amused half exhilarated at the feeling of her flirting with him about his dragon side. “Unfortunately as the years passed, dragons and humans stopped interacting, the dragons became extinct and each generation of demi-dragons got weaker and weaker. Before we used to be able to fly and breathe fire, but now the most I can do is jump really high, and this.”

He closed his eyes, and breathed in deeply. After a few moments he opened them and Sana could see flecks of gold in his irises as he breathed out a long line of smoke, enough to create a wall of fog and make the entire surrounding area around them misty.

“Not as hot as you imagined huh?” he said once the smoke cleared.

“Well not exactly what I had pictured, but still pretty impressive.” She smiled.

“I’ll happily take that.” He said with a grin.” Although I did teach myself something after years of practice, which was to direct my power to flow from my lungs to my fingertips, which allows me to do this.”

He raised his hand, and Sana watched in amazement as dark blue smoke unfurled from his nails. Yousef’s long fingers moved effortlessly as he directed the vapour to form shapes in front of them, of a young hijabi maiden sitting beside a small dragon. He added the words princess Sana below the image and looked back at her expectantly.

“Now that, is freakin cool.” She said awestruck.

“Anything for you, princess.”


End file.
